Argumentar, Precisa-se!

Funding
University of Porto/Santander Totta

 

Reference
Proj. PP19

 

Main researcher
Rui Trindade

 

Research team
Ana Maria Faustino (FEUP)
Ana Mouraz
Carla Figueiredo
Daniela Pinto
Carlinda Leite
Jaime Villate (FEUP)
José Manuel Ferreira (FEUP)
Sara Pinheiro

 

Duration
01.09.2009 - 31.08.2010

 

Partner institution 
FEUP

 

Abstract
«Argumentar - the development of argumentative skills at Higher Education», is a project that arises from the observation that students need to decide and justified their statements, decisions and options, as a transversal skill that must be developed within the training programs on Higher Education contexts. In our research project we want to know how, in these contexts, the development of argumentative skills happens. To achieve such objective we: (i) analyze academic works of the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education students from the point of view of arguments that have been mobilized; (ii) analyze the logical patterns of argumentative reasoning deployed by students; (iii) compare the argumentation strategies used by students from the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education and (iv) analyze how assessment programs affect the development of argumentative skills of students.

The study allowed us to conclude that: (i) evaluation methods influence how students construct their argumentative reasoning; (ii) there are specific ways of produce argumentative reasoning depending of the knowledge area that students belong and (iii) there is still sufficient investment in developing argumentative skills on Higher Education.